Archive for the ‘BlogHer '08’ Category

  • BlogHer Recap 3-Saturday, slightly less crazy

    Sunday, July 27th, 2008

    My first book signing wasn’t until noon on Saturday, so I didn’t set an alarm. Dana actually got up and went to yoga! I stayed snuggled into that Heavenly Bed until about 8:30 I guess. Lori called to see what we were doing, so the three of us decided to go get some real breakfast (Friday’s breakfast for me had been a cold bagel). We found a restaurant on Geary called Lefty O’Doul’s that advertised breakfast until 11. We had to wait a few minutes, but soon I was tucking into scrambled eggs, huge slices of crispy bacon, and sourdough pancakes-YUM. Oh and Starbucks coffee, woke me up!

    By the time we were done there wasn’t that much time left before my first book signing, so we headed back to the hotel. Oh, but first I popped outside to the designated smoking area (I know, I know) and chatted with Karl, but did I get a photo of me and Karl? Dammit! I did get a photo with Corinna and then who should come up to join us but Robyn Tippins! I met her last year through her work with MyBlogLog, and we made an instant connection. Now she’s a Yahoo! Community Manager. I also snapped a photo with the lovely Corinna, she put a smile on my face every time I ran into her the whole time.

    My first book signing was with two ladies who are not only terrific writers, but also fabulous people! I couldn’t believe they were happy to be meeting ME! And the blogs these two have-sheesh. I’m talking about Stephanie Klein, author of “Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp” and “Straight Up and Dirty”, and Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of “Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay” and “Naptime Is The New Happy Hour”. They were both so enthusiastic about signing books and had the biggest smiles, it really made my morning!

    In between signings someone came rushing up to me calling my name, it was Velma! She was so sweet and we posed for a quick photo together. And then Maggie and Evany arrived, EARLY even, and I went a little fangirl on Maggie, I can’t help it! She’s got so many amazing blogs and she’s so pretty, last year I probably would have been terrified to even look at her. But this year, keeping with my personal theme of fearlessness, I said Hi Maggie! I’m Elizabeth, and she hugged me! See? Fangirl. She introduced me to Evany, who has a Flickr photoset of her wearing the most amazing outfits. Maggie’s book is “No One Cares What You Had For Lunch” and Evany’s is “The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple’s Guide”, which is a really clever look at different sleeping positions that couples get into. It was great to meet both of them!

    That was a big day for me as far as blogger meetups, I posed for photos with Sizzle, Liz from Mom-101, Cathy from Mayberry Mom (whose daughter had a burst appendix and I didn’t even know about it, I’m so sorry, Cathy!), Rhi (who is adorably scrumptious!), and Christine from From Dates to Diapers.

    I had a break after the second set of book signings, and Elisa had insisted I go to a session, so I went with Lori to, um, something about Monetization without Advertising? By the time we got there the room was packed, so we had to sit way in the back. I sat down, and when my body realized it was going to get to stop moving for a minute, I was immediately overcome with exhaustion. Good thing I was in the back, because I said goodbye to Lori, went up to my room, set the alarm for an hour later, crawled into the Heavenly Bed and fell instantly asleep. Best. Nap. EVER.

    I woke up feeling much better, freshened up, and headed downstairs for the last book signings, with the lovely Devra and Aviva, authors of “Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids”, and Jennette Fulda, author of “Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir”. It seemed like their signing went by really fast! I snuck into the Closing Keynote, Elisa was interviewing Stephanie Klein and Heather Armstrong about what it’s like to live as if you are in the Truman Show with people watching and commenting on your every move. It makes me so sad that there are HATE SITES devoted to these two women, who did nothing to deserve any hatred from anyone. What is wrong with people?

    You may have heard there was a moment of drama in the Keynote, I’m not going to address it here. I’ve learned my lesson about posting anything about blog drama, so please don’t ask. After that I went back to my room to change my clothes for the reception at Macy’s. It was crazy, they had sections of Macy’s closed just for us, we started out in the HANDBAG department which just about killed me, so close to all those Coach purses and not able to buy one. There was champagne (wine?) and a totebag from Ooops! with an 11% off coupon good just for that day in Macy’s-wouldn’t have helped me afford anything. From there we went up a floor to shoes, where there were little chinese food containers with cold noodles, some kind of little nacho-like thing, and shots of the new Vivanno drinks at Starbucks-banana chocolate, yum!

    After that was the LINGERIE department, I’m sure all the guy bloggers really appreciated that. There were these little glasses with this white drink in it, someone handed me one and said I was supposed to drink it in one shot, so I did. It was CHIPOTLE PEPPER VODKA and White Chocolate Liqueur! Damn, it burned all the way down. Thanks a LOT, whoever that was. LOL There were also these trays of cookies, soft and spongy on the outside with fillings, one was purple and I think it was lavender flavored, the other was white and I think vanilla. Kind of weird tasting. That floor was sponsored by KY, who handed out little tubes of KY Intrigue lube, which was definitely the most adult party favor I got that whole weekend.

    Our final stop was the furniture department, where there was a DJ and a table with the new book “Sleep Is For The Weak” on sale, and all the bloggers who contributed to it were there signing books. At $10 each it was very affordable. I can’t find my copy at the moment since it’s buried in a pile of stuff I still have to put away, but I know I got it signed by Rita, Alice, Eden, Liz, Kristen, Amy, Tracey, and Susan.

    Whew! Now, I’m headed to Cincinnati tomorrow until late Tuesday night, so I might not be able to finish my BlogHer recap until next week. But thanks for reading!

    12 Comments » Filed under: BlogHer '08, Geeks are HOTT, I Like Meeting People

  • Haiku Friday: BlogHer Recap

    Friday, July 25th, 2008

    I’m pleading artistic license with this haiku, you need to read “09″ as one syllable. Hey, sometimes you gotta bend the rules a little. And also? I was reading Sarcastic Mom when I composed this, so that’s why the references to Lotus and her bewbs, a photo of them went to BlogHer and people posed with them, but I never saw the photo! I’m so bummed! Please to enjoy the haiku:

    I’m home from BlogHer
    with cards and swag and new books
    hugged lots of new friends!

    But where were Lotus’ bewbs?
    Looked everywhere for the photo!
    Such a bummer, man.

    Plan for next year is
    To lose weight and get in shape
    HOT by BlogHer 09!

    Also would like to
    See Lotus at BlogHer and
    Give her big smoochy hugs

    Only fifty-one
    Weeks until the next BlogHer!
    Start saving cash now :)

    6 Comments » Filed under: BlogHer '08

  • BlogHer Recap 2- Friday, crazy day!

    Friday, July 25th, 2008

    I left off my last post having crawled into bed at about 12:30 AM after Thursday’s FOUR parties in one night. Now, I went to BlogHer this year as a volunteer, my title was “Bookstore wrangler”. The person who carries the microphone during sessions is called the Mic wrangler, the person who oversees all the volunteers is the Volunteer wrangler, etc. Because I had been working for a little over a month helping get the books ordered from Barnes & Noble and emailing the authors answering their questions, I thought I was supposed to spend most of Friday and Saturday in the BlogHer bookstore.

    So I set the alarm clock for SIX AM Friday morning, took a shower, stumbled downstairs to the Westin lobby where they had a company called Caruso’s selling coffee drinks and delicious pastries, grabbed a ginormous Mocha and a Chocolate Nutella croissant OMG, and went into the bookstore. I chatted with the iRobot people who were setting up Roomba demos and once Terri from B&N and the boxes of books arrived, I got to work helping her unpack all the boxes and set out the books.

    Before I knew it, it was noon and time for our first book signing. After weeks of emails with the authors, looking at their book titles and their names dozens of times in the spreadsheets, I came to think of each of them as “my” authors. I asked each of them to pose for a photo with me and they all kindly obliged, plus I snapped photos of each of them signing a book. First to sign was Anna Post, the great-great-granddaughter of Manners Maven Emily Post, the whole family writes books about manners! Anna signed her book, “Emily Post’s Wedding Parties”, plus other titles from the Post family. Anna was wonderful, and after I told her that Kaitlyn’s idea of sharing was to say “give me that, now we sharing”, she kindly gave me a copy of “Emily’s Sharing and Caring Book“-let’s hope it helps! lol Signing books alongside Anna was Mona Gable who contributed to the book “The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change”.

    My other author signings that day were Claire Mysko who wrote a book called “Girls Inc. Presents: You’re Amazing!: A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self”-Claire was so enthusiastic about her book signing! She gave me her cell number and when a lady purchased her book and asked about getting it signed, I called Claire and helped the two of them meet up! Along with Claire I had Suzanne Reisman, who blogs at Cuss and Other Rants, signing her book “Off the Beaten (Subway) Track”. She had a great turnout! Right after them were Jennifer Graf Groneberg who wrote “Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son’s First Two Years With Down Syndrome”, and Vicki Forman who contributed to “Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs”.

    SO. At that point, Elisa Camahort came into the room to see how I was doing. When I told her I had been there since 7 AM, she said “no, no! You don’t need to STAY in here! You just need to be here during the book signings! Haven’t you gone to any sessions or anything?” Oh. Um. OH.

    So I left and walked through the exhibit hall, I wrote a lot about the products I saw on http://momreviews.net if you want a more detailed description. There were great exhibits from Picnik, PBS Kids, Sprout, V-Tech, Leapfrog, HP TouchSmart, and a whole lot more! Anna Post was not just there to sign books, she was also there working with one of the exhibitors, Merci Chocolates! They were giving out one pound boxes of chocolate to everyone, oh YEAH. I’ll be writing more about their National Thank You Day, and the contest that Merci is having.

    After that, I went to the Sesame Street Suite! I met Abby Cadabby and Grover! I could have recorded a little video with one of them, but the spots were filling up and I had so much on my mind I completely forgot to go back. But I did chat with Abby and her lovely puppeteer, and found out from Grover’s puppeteer that he learned the voice of Grover from Frank Oz himself! I could have just camped out for hours in that room, they had milk and cupcakes, tootsie rolls, Sesame Street episodes on the TV-it was like a little room in heaven.

    But, soon I had to go back for my last signing of the day, with Lisa Witter, author of “The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World — And How to Reach Them”, and Diane MacEachern, who wrote “Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World”. After that last signing, I tried to go to the Community Keynote, which had bloggers reading their best posts on stage. I tried, but I was just so darn exhausted, and I still had two parties!

    I popped up to my room, freshened up, then Dana, Lori, and Christina (A Mommy Story) and I headed out to the cocktail reception at Ruby Skye, which was just around the corner from the hotel. It’s beautiful inside, and there was food and drinks and music to dance to. I was grateful for the pasta bar, I was starving! AND, in one corner of the club, they had set up the “TNT Drama Lounge”, because the party was sponsored by TNT and the shows “Saving Grace” and “The Closer”. I got to meet Gina Ravera, who plays Detective Irene Daniels on “The Closer”, and she was amazing!

    We talked for a long time about her life as an actress, and how much she loves going out and meeting people. You know what was interesting? When we were posing for the photo, the guy taking photos kept saying no, your eyes were closed and no, the light is wrong and then Gina, ever the actress, turned to him and said “tell me what you need from me. What do you need me to do?” It was such an actor moment! She was sweet. They gave out bottles of “Closer Red” nail polish and really pretty little clocks, too.

    After Ruby Skye, a bunch of us piled into cabs and headed over to Maggie Mason’s Mighty Haus Launch Party. Maggie and her husband Brian did such a great job with the party! The logo for Mighty Haus is a key in an orange box, so everything at the party was ORANGE. There were bowls of Cheetos, Goldfish crackers, Reese’s sticks and cups-fun! Everyone got to choose a small key on a thread to wear as a necklace, and there was nice wine and unique sodas to drink. I would have taken a lot more photos, but I FORGOT to reformat my camera card and didn’t have any room left! GAH! There are a bunch on Flickr though, search for the tag mightyhaus.

    I also got to meet Heather Armstrong, who has the most charming Southern manners, beautiful hair and clothes, and is about six feet tall PLUS she wears heels. There’s a hilarious photo of us on Flickr that I’m still looking for, she is standing behind me and I guess I thought she was going to grab me or something because I’m like shrieking with laughter and my mouth is WIDE open-not really that attractive but still funny. The party was at the Adaptive Path offices which were about six blocks (?) from the hotel. When I was ready to go, I walked out with three other bloggers thinking we would either a. flag down a passing cab or b. call the phone number on the card the cab driver had given us, the card that read “WE ALWAYS ANSWER THE PHONE”.

    So there I am with Genie and Secret Agent Josephine and another blogger whose name I can’t remember (sorry!), walking down 3rd Street, thinking if we just keep walking, eventually a cab will stop. Genie is very tall and she was waving her arms and jumping up and down, and still, no cab would stop. SAJ pulled out that cab driver card and called the number on it. “WE ALWAYS ANSWER THE PHONE” turned out to mean “The phone will ring a billion times but no one will answer”. We called the Yellow Cab number (333-3333), they HUNG UP on SAJ. We just kept walking, me getting more and more freaked out because here I am with my purse and my huge camera walking down unfamiliar streets with people I don’t really know, and all I want is to get in a freaking cab already.

    Do you know where we ended up? AT&T PARK. We walked all the way to the baseball stadium before we finally flagged down a cab and threw ourselves in it. Oh, did I mention the man I passed pushing a shopping cart with a sign that read “SMOKED A GIANT DOOBIE, HAVE THE MUNCHIES, PLEASE HELP”? Awesome.

    And THAT, my friends, was FRIDAY at BlogHer. It was just as exhausting to do as you might think from reading about it! And I still have to recap SATURDAY and SUNDAY! I know we are heading into the weekend when most people don’t read blogs, but I leave for Cincinnati on Monday so I have to get this done. Please say you’ll check in over the weekend and read, and leave comments? kthxbai!

    10 Comments » Filed under: BlogHer '08

  • BlogHer Recap 1- and this is just Thursday!

    Thursday, July 24th, 2008

    I can’t believe what a hard time I’m having writing about BlogHer! It’s like, I don’t want to say too little, but I don’t know how much to say, so I’m just sort of stuck! I arrived last Thursday just in time to hop on a shuttle bus to the Kirtsy/Alltop party, and while waiting for the bus, I had a chance to hug Julie and Kristen from Parent Bloggers Network, Liz from Cool Mom Picks (Kristen is CMP too), and Krisco from Crib Ceiling. I ran into Gwendomama in the lobby, she’s a PBN blogger, and my roommates were Anne and Dana who reviews at Dana Reviews. When I got to the room, I found Lori waiting for us, she has a bunch of great blogs including Cowgirl Critiques. She is so cute and she just jumped right in to all the BlogHer craziness! I was so glad she came!

    On the shuttle bus, I chatted with Dana, Lori, Jennster (she just gets hotter every year), Kristie from SlackerMommy, and Corinna from A Celebration of Curves, who has cleavage like you wouldn’t believe! And then, I start chatting with the blogger sitting across from me, and she goes “Elizabeth! It’s MICHELLE LAMAR!” Michelle blogs at White Trash Mom and was one of “my” authors in the BlogHer Bookstore! I just wanted to pack her in my suitcase and bring her home, she was so sweet and fun.

    Despite our shuttle bus driver having NO CLUE how to actually get to the party, we arrived at Guy Kawasaki’s house in Atherton to find all the Kirtsy ladies, plus so many other wonderful bloggers whose sites are listed on Alltop. There was a photo area where you could dress up in costumes and get your photo taken, a huge bowl of paella, fancy wine, and my favorite, plastic cups of mashed potatoes with barbecued chicken on top-yum! I was so happy to see Gabrielle from Kirtsy again, she was at the Disney event I went to in April. I met Laurie from Kirtsy at last year’s BlogHer too.

    I ran into BOSSY, big smooches for her, and Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing and Stephanie from Ladybug and her Blogging Mama, who also went to the Disney event. I talked to Kristen from Mommy Needs a Cocktail but DIDN’T get a photo with her, darn it! I hugged Casey from Moosh in Indy about half a dozen times, plus shook hands a little nervously with Eden from Fussy, Alice from Finslippy, and Melissa from Suburban Bliss. I don’t know what I was so nervous about, they are all quite lovely and friendly.

    I gave a big hug to Christina from A Mommy Story, and squealed a bit when I met Wendy from Sparkplugging! After picking up buttons that read “Kirtsy, we bring bitches together” (ha!) and debating over the one that read “I heart Guy K” or the one with Guy’s face on it (I went for the face one), and grabbing a ginormous swag bag (cute red totebag from Scholastic positively STUFFED with swag) and a black tee that reads “I Write For Me”, we boarded the shuttle back to the hotel. Fortunately, that driver knew where he was going, plus rush hour was over.

    We got back to the hotel just as the MomCentral “First Drink on Us” party was wrapping up, and after hugging the heck out of the adorable Abbey, I gratefully accepted a Cosmo and a totebag with three new hardback books I can’t wait to read. I also met Kara and Stacy from MomCentral, and let me tell you, they are all the nicest people you could ever want to work with. Then I bumped into Anne-Marie Nichols, who I first met at BlogHer 06 when I knew absolutely no one and asked if I could sit with her at breakfast. And here we are 2 years later!

    Okay, so let’s see, where are we? That’s the second party of the night, TWO MORE parties to go! We took a cab over to Rye bar even though it was only down the street and around the corner because we hadn’t been there long enough to get the lay of the land, so to speak, so we didn’t realize just how close to the hotel it was. Rye bar was the site of the party hosted by The Experience Project, where I happily greeted Armen and Julio, who I first met last year. They are still so awesome and so enthusiastic (and rightfully so) about their website. I sipped a Cosmo, picked up a cute gift bag, snapped some photos, and then it was time for the FOURTH party of the night, the People’s Party!

    Hosted by a bevy of amazing bloggers, the People’s Party was where I met Loralee from Loralee’s Looney Tunes, Leah Peah, Mr. Lady from Whiskey in my Sippy Cup, and ran into my blog pals Liz from This Full House, Shannon from PHAT Mommy, Kerry from Crunchy Carpets, Amber from Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck, and Shannon from Believer in Balance. I also met Mrs. Flinger (finally!) and found Charlene, formerly of Maya’s Mom, who now runs Shine, the parenting site for Yahoo!. AND, I found James and Zameer from BabySpot, who are like big huggable teddy bears and I am so happy to be writing their weekly newsletter! Thanks for the job, guys!

    Oh, and someone, I totally cannot remember WHO, but I know she’s a relatively new blogger and it was her first BlogHerCon, bought me a drink at the party. THANK YOU, whomever you were! Turns out, four Cosmos is my limit, and after that, I needed to go to BED. Unfortunately for my roommates, I fell right asleep while they were still up, and I started TALKING IN MY SLEEP. According to Dana I said something like “no, I already did that”-ha! And then I tried to SPOON Dana, but it’s not my fault, we slept together last year too, and I’m just so darn comfortable with her! LOL Sorry sweetie!

    And THAT was Thursday at BlogHer. Turns out a 41 year old out of shape mother of three CAN go to four parties in one night! Just not more than once a year. Tomorrow? I’ll recap Friday!

    12 Comments » Filed under: BlogHer '08, Geeks are HOTT, I Like Meeting People

  • Sunday morning, San Francisco

    Sunday, July 20th, 2008

    HEY!! You guys, I am so sorry that I haven’t had time to post before now, but I am telling you, they keep us hopping during this conference! This is seriously the first chance I have had to sit down and blog since I got here Thursday afternoon. We have what they call an “unconference” today, which is actually a real thing, there’s a facilitator and everything, who guides everyone through deciding what topics to discuss, then we break up into groups and just do our own thing. It’s like Zen Conferencing, which I could so use right now.

    My Feet are KILLING ME, for real, like I was laying in bed last night trying to fall asleep and the bottoms of my feet were throbbing. I need to go on a 52 week prepare-my-feet-now-for-next-year’s-BlogHer program or something. Or, you know, get up and walk around more in my regular life.

    So anyway, thanks to a spectactular nap yesterday afternoon (OMG the Westin’s “Heavenly Beds”? They are not kidding about the Heavenly, I want to buy one and have it installed in my bedroom at home), and going to bed not drunk, I woke up at 5:45 this morning! I took a shower, dried my hair, got dressed, and went outside for a walk up to the 24 hour Walgreen’s to get some cash and some souvenirs. I hope the snowglobes I bought survive in my suitcase, I’m probably going to have to, um, “borrow” some washcloths from the hotel bathroom to wrap them in. sssh, don’t tell ;)

    I have photos, OMG do I have PHOTOS!! But the connection here is not fast enough, it takes for-EVAH to upload anything, so I promise once I get home, I’ll get them all on Flickr as fast as I can, and I leave the link to my Flickr page in a post for anyone who wants to check it out. I decided this year that everyone person I shook hands with or hugged (and I did a LOT more hugging than hand shaking, that’s for sure), I would ask if they would pose for a photo with me. And fortunately, they all said yes :) So I have about, oh, 200 photos of me with the most spectacular bloggers on the planet, all of whom are gorgeous and amazing and made me feel like a rockstar all weekend, which honestly, how flattering is it when someone you don’t even think knows you exist goes OMG TABLE FOR FIVE!! AAAAHHHH!!!! Pretty big boost to the ole blogging ego for me!

    I’m gonna wrap it up now and go print my boarding pass, so big smooches to everybody and I promise I’ll give you all the fantastic details in a post tomorrow (but not too early since I’ll probably sleep a bit after getting home)(and spend some time loving on my kids and smooching my husband :) (and you know, unpacking the fifty pounds of stuff I’m bringing home)!!!

    9 Comments » Filed under: BlogHer '08, Born to Blog